...Friends, friends, friends.

By Ms. Dirty Laundry

It seems like at every major junction in my life (the end of high school, the end of college) I have gone through a mini-breakdown involving my friends. I used to worry that something was wrong with me…why couldn't I hold onto friends for more than a few years? Should I just put up with be treated shitty because I have a history with these people? I’d beat myself up over the fact that I didn’t really want to hang out with someone anymore. I had no idea how to deal with the fact that I felt I was being treated like shit by people who were supposed to be my friends. These people didn’t know me…they just spent the whole time complaining about their lives, or their parents, or how they had no money, or blah blah blah. I was sick of hearing it. I was sick of being the one that had to shoulder their shit.

I always came to the same decisions every time I hit this roadblock in my life. First and foremost I decided there was nothing wrong with me and that I wasn’t going to put up with their shit. I also, however, decided that part of the problem was my fault (much later on of course). While I am a firm believer that people seriously change throughout their lives and sometimes the directions that their lives take are totally different, I also believe that you don’t get in a position like that, with certain people, if you speak up and play your part in the friendship.

I now have a story about Miss BFF. Disclaimer, I am going to tell this story from my point of view, not hers. I realize she has her side of the story but this is my blog so I get to tell it about how I felt at the time and why I did what I did. And how it turned out.

I had this friend. We had been BFF’s since elementary school but in high school we started to hit snags. BFF started hanging out with a few other girls. In my opinion these girls were nothing but trouble…they slept around, had eating disorders, did hard drugs, were just down right bitches and were very cliquey. We will call them Miss Bitchy and Miss Bitchier. I was, and therefore I immediately did not fit in. I also couldn't understand why this girl, who I had been such good friend with for so long, could even be interested in hanging out with them. Or why she put up with the destructive behaviors they constantly participated in. When college came around, the road started getting even more bumpy for us. BFF partied a lot and didn’t go to school to often. I partied too, but got completely engrossed in college. She lied to her parents about her grades while I was working my ass off to get good grades and work part time. I started hanging out with the people in my classes, and she kept hanging out with Miss Bitchy and Miss Bitchier. Finally I just decided our roads had split and we were headed in different directions. I didn’t want to put up with being last in line for her attention ALL of the time. We started getting in stupid little fights (that I probably started…in retrospect of course, at the time they were ALL her fault!). I stopped calling her and ignored her calls a lot of the time because I had already decided I was done with her. It was my time to be a bitch and treat her like shit. I started hanging out with people I had more in common with; people I had classes with, or would see at parties all the time. I pretty much stopped hanging out with her except for the random sighting here or there, and maybe birthdays or something like. I just felt it was a time in my life where I was going to college, trying to better myself and here she was wasting her life partying the night away. I finally 'broke up with her'. I actually wrote her a letter and left it in her mailbox. There was stuff I wanted to say but just couldn't find the way to say it to her face. Nor, at the time, did I feel she deserved that. I felt like I had been treated like shit and taken advantage of, I was going to give her the respect of telling her I was done with her to her face.

For a long time she left me alone. We would run into each other at a party here or there but I was done with her. I was done with having her in my life. I was completely ok not having her be a part of my future in any way, shape or form. After some time (years) she called me, pretty much out of the blue, and asked me something. Asked me to take part in a very important thing in her life. Honestly, as I said yes, I was thinking to myself "why? Why does she want me to be involved? Why did I just say yes?" I honestly didn't think I would ever go through with it. I just thought I would never follow up and the subject would never come up again. In the end, I went through with it, and now that I look back, I am glad I was there. But even after that, I never really wanted her back in my life. I was still very wrapped up in the whole college scene and had a whole new set of friends and I was ok with that. She wasn't. She kept calling, I kept resisting. An occasional lunch here or there but all in all, I still felt like she was this complaining person that had taken advantage of me. I definitely still blamed our friendship falling apart on her. I had a lot to realize. She kept calling, she kept in touch. She wouldn't let me 'break up' with her. I honestly don't remember what brought us back together. In my opinion, we have both done a lot of growing up and somehow the roads of our lives have come back together. She is now a huge part of my life and one of my dearest friends.

In our situation, I had completely accepted parting ways and leaving her in my past. I also don't regret the way things happened or turned out because at the time, for many years, we were very different people. She wasn't the BFF from elementary school and I am sure I wasn't whatever she regarded me as. But somehow we found our way back to being friends. And I think our friendship is in a much more honest place than it could have ever been if we hadn't gone through what we went through. I think our friendship is in a place now where it will last a lifetime.

On that note, I've also ended up in situations with people that have separated myself from them, I realized how toxic they were to my life. I realized that their negative attitude was so toxic that it made everyone and everything around them miserable. These are the relationships that I have let go and my life is so much better for those decisions. Friendships are a lot of work but they should be worth the work; they should leave you with a confidant, a partner in crime, and someone that you can truly share your life with. They shouldn't leave you hating yourself, the world or them.

There’s this famous quote that I love that had always made me take a look at my friendships (even though it doesn't really have anything to do with my story but...): "Some people enter our lives and quickly go. Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts and we are never, ever the same."

Like I said, it’s a 2 way road…it’s just making the hard decision of whether the road has split up ahead or if it’s just in need of a few repairs.